Friday, August 27, 2010

As much as I enjoy living in the city, I've noticed that Friday is a horrible day for driving downtown. It's like everyone says, "Screw it, it's the end of the week, I'm tired of driving sensibly." And it's the same thing every Friday: I get cut off by more people, almost rammed from behind or sideswiped by someone who decides to merge from the lane beside me while I'm right next to them. Some Fridays people will just stop in the middle of the road for no reason or perform elaborate U-turns on one-way streets.

Today proved to be no different from every other Friday. I was waiting at a stoplight and the light turned green. We all began to move and a car on the cross street, who had stopped at the red light, decided pull out in front of me when I was 3/4 of the way through the intersection.

I honked my horn to give him a heads up. It wasn't a HOOOOOONK or even a HONK, just a quick tap on the horn to let him know I was there.

The speed that his hand was out the window, straight up in the air, and middle finger extended was impressive. It was almost like we was waiting for me to honk, that's how fast it was. He either assumed pulling in front of me would elicit a honk and was ready to go, or he had been driving so badly all afternoon that he was getting honked at over and over again and just decided to have his hand waiting by the window.

It was so fast, I could do nothing but start laughing hysterically at the man. It was just incredibly crazy how fast this guy flipped me off for honking at him when he almost clipped my car. And I laughed and laughed and laughed.

This made him angry, but I didn't care. He was too funny to not laugh at. And when I saw how mad he got when I laughed at him, he threw a fit in his car. Or maybe he was just really getting into his angry rap music and was singing along. Either way, I got to laugh at a Puerto Rican. If that's not a great way to start off the weekend, I don't know what is.

I was the first one at the office this morning which always makes me a little nervous. The first one in has to deactivate the alarm system and it's notorious for not being very generous and letting you "CLEAR" and "RESET" if you accidentally hit the wrong number.

Upon opening the door, though, I found the alarm wasn't on.

As I entered the building, I kept an eye out to make sure no one was inside to startle me. I went into the kitchen to put my soda and yogurt in the fridge and was a little taken back by the coffee pot.

OK, I can understand someone forgetting to turn on the alarm when they leave, but what was going on with this? Did someone make coffee and then forget to put the pot back on the burner? Is that even possible? Or...well...to be honest, I can't think of another reason to explain this weird phenomenon.

I did a quick walkthrough of the studio and my office and couldn't find anything else out of place. Freaky Friday, indeed.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Today I was walking downtown and was approached by two fat girls coming in the opposite direction. They were walking side-by-side and as someone who has a pretty well-developed sense of size, I knew there was no way all three of us were going to fit on the sidewalk at the same time.

And this brings me to my request: If you're not going to go single-file for three or four steps while I try to squeeze past, can you at least not give me a dirty look like I'm the one in the way?

Thanks, fat people. Thanks.

[caption id="attachment_2096" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="This is pretty much what I saw coming at me today on the sidewalk"][/caption]

How do you know you're a real fan of Judge Judy? How do you know when perhaps you've seen one too many episodes?

When you start to recognize the fact they're using the same people in the audience over and over again, that's when. Don't be too impressed. I'm not actually that good with picking up small details like noticing the extras in a daily courtroom TV show.

But when one of the extras stands out like this one, you can't help.

There she is in the upper left-hand corner. She just has a look that stands out. The harsh make-up. The angry eyebrows. That distinct Is-That-A-Dude-In-Drag uncertainty. That's not an easy look to forget.

Especially when he/she pops up again....

...and again...

...and again...

...and again.

Hey, Judge Judy producers: I think it might be time to do another casting call for extras. When it becomes more fun playing Where's The Angry Guy In A Wig than watching Judge Judy yell at people, that's sort of a sign.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

A few weeks ago Sarah and I took a trip to Gettysburg and did a little amateur ghost hunting. When we left town, we were very excited with what we thought was proof of...something. You can see the evidence we collected here.

This past Saturday Sarah and I trekked back to Gettysburg and the first thing we did was return to the general store where we thought we may have spotted the ghost of Mrs Pickering (the original owner of the general store). Sarah took a photo from the same place she stood the last time around and, lo and behold, the anomaly was back. And as soon as it showed up, we knew we didn't hadn't captured a ghost. That would have been too easy.

The street lights must have been brighter because, although the video looks just as dark as last time around, we could see inside the store easier and I was able to quickly identify the items that were making it look as if there was a form..or something...standing browsing the aisles.

We were a little disappointed that we were able to de-bunk Mrs. Pickering so quickly, but at the same time, I think we were a little proud of our de-bunking skills.

That night we returned to the Ghosts of Gettysburg, the place where we went on a ghost tour the last time we were in town. Only this time it wasn't a standard tour with ghost stories, it was an actual ghost investigation. We were excited to learn that only two other people showed up, as we hoped that meant more time to interact with author and ghost hunter Mark Nesbitt and co- investigator Larry Phelps.

When we arrived, we found out we would be investigating the Ghosts of Gettysburg building, which is purported to be haunted with a few ghosts of its own. We were told we would carry on EVP sessions in a few different rooms, get to learn about the equipment they use, like EMF (electromagnetic field) detectors, and so on.

Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The other couple who showed up were from Pittsburgh and the guy decided that we had paid money to learn not from the Ghosts of Gettysburg people, but from him.

From the onset he bragged about how good he was, he must have mentioned the fact he was a DJ at least six or seven times, and when our tour guides would mention their methods or talk about their equipment, this guy (his name was Gary but also made it a point to mention the fact that his DJ name is DJ EVP) would interrupt and explain what the actual proper method was, what he does, why this is wrong, why we was right, and on and on and on and on.

He would then go into stories that pertained to nothing, brag about other things he did, he bragged about the fact that he has $1000-headphones, and pretty much railroaded the conversation that only he was engaging in to revolve around him.

And it was because of this dill weed that our night was ruined. We didn't get to try out any of the cool gadgets, we only got to investigate one of the six areas in the house we were told we would get to investigate, we didn't see any dark shapes or hear any voices, and we walked away with nothing.

Like a drunk heckler at a comedy club who thinks he's being part of the show but is actually just ruining the night for everyone, this douche named Gary made me want to elbow him in his show-off face.

But I didn't. And Sarah and I just walked back to our hotel and made fun of him behind his stupid back.